EMPIRICAL OBSERVATION OF WIRELESS NETWORK PERFORMANCE FOR TRANSMISSION CONTROL PROTOCOL (TCP) UPSTREAM AND DOWNSTREAM FOR DIFFERENT USERS SCENARIOS

Abstract

The increase in demand for proper and fast access to network infrastructure around the University environment by staff, students, and visitors in the quest to carry out daily tasks or keeping up with trends/innovations around the globe is a daily experience resulting in some challenges. But these challenges are not unexpected. The access to network infrastructure around the environment encourages proper development. This paper presents an empirical observation of transmission control protocol upstream throughput (TCPupT) and downstream throughput (TCPdownT) performance for an IEEE 802.11g wireless local area network (WLAN) installed at a corridor space of University of Nigeria, Nsukka campus. This work measured the TCP upstream and downstream throughput values for single, double, and multiple users (several Users) accessing an installed WLAN access point. The paper adopted basic WLAN system setup approach while observing the TCP performance in relation to SNR. Data collected for each environment were statistically analyzed, equations and results were also presented. The observed TCP throughput values vary as users increase thereby affecting the observed round-trip time (RTT). The generated equations were also used to predict TCP throughput which would aid network engineers in the deployment of IEEE 802.11g WLAN systems especially around the university environment. It is now clear that the generated model equations can be used for predicting the expected performance of IEEE 802.11g WLAN systems during deployment. This work gives WLAN engineers, researchers and users an apparatus to rapidly estimate the TCP upstream and downstream throughput, by monitoring the received SNR for IEEE 802.11g systems.